Sand Lake arts center raising funds for renovation

The Sand Lake Center for the Arts is two-thirds of the way toward a $90,000 goal to improve the facility’s floor, stage and lighting.

Buttressed by many individual contributions and about $5,000 each from Stewart’s Shops and the state’s Hudson River Greenway grants program, the campaign this week will also benefit from the center’s annual A Taste of Sand Lake fundraiser. About 10 Sand Lake-area businesses will supply the food at the event, scheduled for 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Old Daley Inn on Crooked Lake (the former Crooked Lake House), 2339 Route 43, Averill Park. Tickets, at $50 apiece, are available onlineor by calling 674-2007.

The fundraising effort began in April 2011 for the 9-year-old rural arts center, which draws annual audiences totaling about 5,000 for performances of theater, music, dance and children’s programming. The campaign, now at about $60,000, is due to end in May in time for construction next summer, when the arts center is usually less busy.

Plans call for a new floor, a permanent stage with a ramp for handicap access and lighting improvements throughout the facility, which is housed in a renovated, circa-1835 church. The arts center grew out of Circle Theatre Players, its resident stage company, which will open its 32nd season in October.

Begun as an all-volunteer organization with a $26,000 annual budget, the arts center now has one full-time and two part-time employees, six to eight seasonal workers and a budget of $140,000.

“Each year we increase our numbers and draw an audience from a wider area,” says executive director Debra Roy. In addition to its core constituents in rural Rensselaer County, the center now attracts patrons from Albany and Columbia counties as well as from southern Vermont and western Massachusetts.